Plantago lanceolataL.

ribwort plantain

WFO wfo-0000486603 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY In the accuracy benchmark

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Plantago lanceolata, photographed by Ian Manning
fig. a Ian Manning, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-12 / obs. 205636972
Plantago lanceolata, photographed by Mark Apgar
fig. b Mark Apgar, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205647392
Plantago lanceolata, photographed by Paul Braun
fig. c Paul Braun, CC0 1.0 / obs. 205397571
Plantago lanceolata, photographed by Jack Forrester
fig. d Jack Forrester, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205846967
Plantago lanceolata, photographed by cgmayers
fig. e cgmayers, CC0 1.0 / obs. 205396411
Plantago lanceolata, photographed by Mark Apgar
fig. f Mark Apgar, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205223350
Plantago lanceolata, photographed by florawhite
fig. g florawhite, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205482781
Plantago lanceolata, photographed by Jon Mortin
fig. h Jon Mortin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205459807

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 8,305 observations

Peak flowering in May, from 8,305 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 108 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Arnoglossum lanceolatum (L.) Gray
  • Arnoglossum lanceolatum var. ramosum Gray
  • Arnoglossum lanceolatum var. roseum Gray
  • Arnoglossum lanceolatum var. trinervium Gray
  • Lagopus lanceolatus (L.) Fourr.
  • Lagopus timbali Fourr.
  • Plantago abyssinica Hochst. ex A.Br.
  • Plantago ambigua Guss.
  • Plantago argentea Brot.
  • Plantago attenuata Wall.
  • Plantago azorica Hochst. ex Seub.
  • Plantago byzantina K.Koch
  • Plantago capensis Bojer
  • Plantago capitata Ten.
  • Plantago contorta Guss.
  • Plantago dalmatica Schott ex Steud.
  • Plantago dubia L.
  • Plantago elata Steud.
  • Plantago elata Schur
  • Plantago eriophora Hoffmanns. & Link
  • Plantago flexuosa Gaudin ex Rapin
  • Plantago fontis-curvae Kom.
  • Plantago glabriflora Sakalo
  • Plantago glareosa A.Kern. ex Meynh.

and 84 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.